Sci-fi fantasy
- Thread starter glspade
- Start date
Omni
Really Experienced
- Joined
- Jun 11, 2001
- Posts
- 255
CWatson
Not in a band.
- Joined
- Jul 4, 2003
- Posts
- 1,653
Wow, that was a flowery entrance.
g, first off: I have a TON of questions for you.
What's a hovercat? Is it a cat that hovers? Is it a constant misspelling of 'hovercar'? Why does it have a sail? Why does it NEED a sail if it's got repulsorlifts? What's a wave gun? Why does it go 'blurp'? How does it work? Does it shoot waves? Like, ocean waves? If you got a lot of people to use a lot of wave guns simultaneously, could you create a tidal wave? Who's the main character? I thought the man was the main character, since you started in his viewpoint, but evidently this Mor woman is. Who ARE these people? What's the man's name? Where did he come from? Where did SHE come from? Why is she bright orange? Is this NORMAL for humans in your setting? It certainly isn't here.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that, while we sci-fi readers are willing to suspend our questions for a while, you can't expect us to go for an entire chapter without answering at least a FEW of them. I'm not a big fan of large chunks of exposition at the beginning of the story, but let's put it this way (and I think I'm quoting one of the gurus in this, either KillerMuffin or Chicklet): sci-fi stories are set in worlds that have rules different from our own. You HAVE to tell us what those rules are, or else we're not gonna get it. We're just gonna think you don't know what you're doing. Either that, or you're stringing us along for laughs. Either way, we're gonna give up disgusted and burn your story in effigy.
Is it normal for your man to be so calm when someone tries to hijack his vehicle and steal his stuff? He and Mor seem to get along very well, considering they start out shooting at each other. Why do they do this? Doesn't make much sense to me.
> The ship was easily found on the east bank of the river in a rocky clearing.
Passive voice. EEEW. Instead, try "We found the ship easily enough. It was on the east bank of the river, in a rocky clearing."
> swing a log at my head
Define 'log.' When I think log, I think large, weighty tree trunk. I think people's heads flying off, not just being knocked unconscious. Couldn't you use 'branch' instead or something? It's your choice, obviously, and using 'log' might be appropriate in some circumstances. If this is one of them, though, you need to justify its use. You can't just chuck a log at your readers and expect them to passively accept it.
Mol and Mor. Mor and Mol. Japanese readers may have some trouble with this. Normally I'd jump on you for using two WAY-too-similar names, but the similarity is in spelling only; they're pretty unique in terms of pronunciation. Regardless, can't you find some more varied names? I just hope your male character isn't named 'Mon' or something.
K, that gets me through the story itself. Time to recap.
Well, I gotta be honest, g. You need to do a better job of making me interested.
At the end of the story, my dominant impression was, "Okay, so what?" I don't know these characters enough to care about them, so I can sleep at night without knowing what happens next. I'm aware that you have multiple chapters of this story posted, and I should probably be a nice guy and keep reading, see if there's any point to your set-up. But I'm not going to. I'm gonna drop the editor mode and do what a normal reader would do: say, "Okay, that was boring" and not read the next chapter. Maybe things will heat up in that next chapter. Maybe things will get interesting. But I don't really care enough to find out. And if my reaction is anything like that of the average reader's, you're not gonna get many views.
In short: this situation is not interesting.
That doesn't mean it CAN'T be interesting. That's as far from the truth as possible. It just isn't NOW, and what you have to do is make it interesting, NOW. I don't know specifics, because it's YOUR story and YOUR characters, but I assume you're going somewhere with this. That's fine. Just start earlier. Like now, in the first chapter. Add some hints about what the main plot is going to be. Flesh out the characters so that we care about them. Foreshadow, or backshadow--drop hints about where the characters have come from, and where they're going. We readers are willing to bite, but you still have to put the bait out. I'm all for developing characters slowly, but that doesn't mean you can drop a name first and THEN make them interesting. They have to be cool NOW and coolER later.
Anyway. Hope this helps some. Sorry to be so brutal, but I didn't think dancing around the issue would help much. Best luck in future. And I'm gonna go read the next chapters and see if I can find things there that might help you out here.
g, first off: I have a TON of questions for you.
What's a hovercat? Is it a cat that hovers? Is it a constant misspelling of 'hovercar'? Why does it have a sail? Why does it NEED a sail if it's got repulsorlifts? What's a wave gun? Why does it go 'blurp'? How does it work? Does it shoot waves? Like, ocean waves? If you got a lot of people to use a lot of wave guns simultaneously, could you create a tidal wave? Who's the main character? I thought the man was the main character, since you started in his viewpoint, but evidently this Mor woman is. Who ARE these people? What's the man's name? Where did he come from? Where did SHE come from? Why is she bright orange? Is this NORMAL for humans in your setting? It certainly isn't here.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that, while we sci-fi readers are willing to suspend our questions for a while, you can't expect us to go for an entire chapter without answering at least a FEW of them. I'm not a big fan of large chunks of exposition at the beginning of the story, but let's put it this way (and I think I'm quoting one of the gurus in this, either KillerMuffin or Chicklet): sci-fi stories are set in worlds that have rules different from our own. You HAVE to tell us what those rules are, or else we're not gonna get it. We're just gonna think you don't know what you're doing. Either that, or you're stringing us along for laughs. Either way, we're gonna give up disgusted and burn your story in effigy.
Is it normal for your man to be so calm when someone tries to hijack his vehicle and steal his stuff? He and Mor seem to get along very well, considering they start out shooting at each other. Why do they do this? Doesn't make much sense to me.
> The ship was easily found on the east bank of the river in a rocky clearing.
Passive voice. EEEW. Instead, try "We found the ship easily enough. It was on the east bank of the river, in a rocky clearing."
> swing a log at my head
Define 'log.' When I think log, I think large, weighty tree trunk. I think people's heads flying off, not just being knocked unconscious. Couldn't you use 'branch' instead or something? It's your choice, obviously, and using 'log' might be appropriate in some circumstances. If this is one of them, though, you need to justify its use. You can't just chuck a log at your readers and expect them to passively accept it.
Mol and Mor. Mor and Mol. Japanese readers may have some trouble with this. Normally I'd jump on you for using two WAY-too-similar names, but the similarity is in spelling only; they're pretty unique in terms of pronunciation. Regardless, can't you find some more varied names? I just hope your male character isn't named 'Mon' or something.
K, that gets me through the story itself. Time to recap.
Well, I gotta be honest, g. You need to do a better job of making me interested.
At the end of the story, my dominant impression was, "Okay, so what?" I don't know these characters enough to care about them, so I can sleep at night without knowing what happens next. I'm aware that you have multiple chapters of this story posted, and I should probably be a nice guy and keep reading, see if there's any point to your set-up. But I'm not going to. I'm gonna drop the editor mode and do what a normal reader would do: say, "Okay, that was boring" and not read the next chapter. Maybe things will heat up in that next chapter. Maybe things will get interesting. But I don't really care enough to find out. And if my reaction is anything like that of the average reader's, you're not gonna get many views.
In short: this situation is not interesting.
That doesn't mean it CAN'T be interesting. That's as far from the truth as possible. It just isn't NOW, and what you have to do is make it interesting, NOW. I don't know specifics, because it's YOUR story and YOUR characters, but I assume you're going somewhere with this. That's fine. Just start earlier. Like now, in the first chapter. Add some hints about what the main plot is going to be. Flesh out the characters so that we care about them. Foreshadow, or backshadow--drop hints about where the characters have come from, and where they're going. We readers are willing to bite, but you still have to put the bait out. I'm all for developing characters slowly, but that doesn't mean you can drop a name first and THEN make them interesting. They have to be cool NOW and coolER later.
Anyway. Hope this helps some. Sorry to be so brutal, but I didn't think dancing around the issue would help much. Best luck in future. And I'm gonna go read the next chapters and see if I can find things there that might help you out here.
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